BUFFALO, N.Y. — There is nothing as powerful as a community coming together.
On Dec. 23, the same day the blizzard started, Mumina Musse needed just that.
"Mumina texted me and said I think I'm having contractions," said her sister-in-law Halima Mohamed.
Mohamed works at the Jericho Road Community Health Center, but she's still in nursing school. She called for an ambulance three times.
"They were like, 'Well, just call us when you see the baby's head. I'm like, 'OK, what do I do when I see the baby's head?' They're like, 'Call us then, and then we'll guide you through on what to do.' I'm like, 'Yeah, that's not going to work,' " Mohamed said.
So she decided to call two colleagues: Dr. Elizabeth Harding and Dr. Myron Glick.
"That's how the show kind of started," Mohamed said.
Dr. Glick put out a call to all residents in the practice to see who lived near and could walk to Musse's house on Auburn Avenue.
"It was terrible and scary," Musse said.
Not one, but three doctors rushed over, including Dr. Tatum Burdo and Dr. Anthony Burdo, as well as Dr. Harding, who put a hold on getting all the snow coming through the second floor of her home to get to Musse.
"So grateful," Musse said.
"It's just, I'm speechless," Mohamed said.
After 36 hours of labor, at 1:36 in the afternoon on Christmas Day, Alaiya Adam came into the world weighing 6 pounds, 15 ounces.
"It was worth it but I'm not doing it again," Musse said.
But that was only the first miracle.
The second? Of all the houses that lost power on the block, Musse's was one of the few that never went out.
"We were lucky. We were lucky," said Musse and Dr. Harding.
But they say things come in threes for a reason.
"There was that miracle at the end that the National Guard managed to find us after the baby had been born so I basically didn't have to remove your placenta without pain medication. That would have been terrible," Dr. Harding said.
On one of the darkest weekends in Buffalo, a community coming together found some light.
"What happened was that a community of people looked out for one another and that's why nobody got hurt," Dr. Harding said.